The troublesome era of mixed media

4K TVs are selling.

They have four times as many pixels as high-vision sets. In other words, I think that they look four times as good. I thought that terrestrial digital broadcasts already look perfectly fine, but it seems that greed was not yet exhausted.

 We want prettier and larger screens. One of our walls has become a place for a large TV. They are selling even though 4K digital broadcasts are still in the future. So what shall we view on them? Videos from the net. It’s more of a large PC than a television.

  In the US it’s already normal to watch shows over the internet on a TV. With the advent of 4K Japan will start to do so as well.

What’s more, 8K TVs are already on the market that are 16 times as attractive as high-vision. The size can be even larger than the wall of a house. Rather than in a house, it might be best for large groups to enjoy them on a wide street. It’s more of a movie experience than a TV experience.

However, recently screens have also been getting smaller.

In the past, the father was the champion of the household, but in recent years his position has slipped and the mother and children are the ones who control the TV remote. Fathers watch TV programs on their mobile devices. They can even watch while in the toilet or under the blankets.

Young high school girls refer to their tablets as “big screens.” So it seems that the point of reference has become the smartphone screen. In this world, a 50 inch TV screen is gigantic.

It has become meaningless to discern between different types of screens such as mobile, smartphone, PC, TV or movie. All of them connect to the internet. Everything is simultaneously a computer and a TV.

 Even without pointing it out, the audience is aware of this.

 While viewing a TV program, one can do a search on a PC and tweet something on social media using a smartphone. With many screen open at one time, broadcast and correspondence become confused, and communication is devoured. This all comes naturally to my son.

 It’s quite a situation.

 TV companies are broadcasting TV programs over the airwaves. Net companies are using communication lines to send web sites to users. Communication companies are sending information to mobiles wirelessly. However, the end user receives all of these at the same time, and can enjoy editing them.

 It has become a troubling era of mixed media.

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Raising international manga artists

 A foreign manga festival was held at the Tokyo Big Site. I was employed as a consultant.

  There was a panel on international manga education. The theme was raising international manga artists. I’ll summarize what I said in the beginning:

  Japan is a manga paradise. Manga represent 64% of all published materials and 20% of all book sales. In Germany this figure is 1.6% and in France it’s 0.4%, so 20% is quite an outlier. Most of the anime that have become popular overseas have manga at their base. Manga are at the center of Japanese culture, and serve as a breeder reactor. 

  The term “Cool Japan” was born ten years ago. The phrase wasn’t born in Japan; it started overseas and was adopted by Japan. Japan is now asking herself how to recapture the manga. Domestically, manga haven’t been treated as important. It’s become a societal problem that there isn’t much education. However, when they started to become popular overseas the government finally recognized their importance and began to support them as artistic media. 

Ten years ago I was employed as the chairman of the IP headquarter in the government. That was when we started to concentrate on manga. I was also the chairman of the Pop Culture Committee. Manga writers were also on the committee and we debated measures of encouragement. On both committees, a major theme was the education of future manga artists. 

 It was then that the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture began to concentrate on the cultivation of human resources which led to the symposiums that we have today.

 At the same time, pop culture cannot be spearheaded by the government by way of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. It must be spearheaded by the citizens. We must always keep that in mind. On the other hand, it must be recognized that the comics of the US, the manga of Canada, the bande dessinnée of France, and our own manga are important cultural assets. The forms of expression found in manga are based upon the culture of their originating country, and it’s wonderful that they have evolved into such a deep and varied art form. I’d like to see those involved in the world of manga cooperate to raise the level of manga culture in the world.

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Discussing the Content Policy with Lawmakers

I was called to a content committee meeting with members of the diet to debate pop culture and Cool Japan. Here are the answers that I gave.

Q. How do you view the competitive power of Korea?

A. Korea’s strategy is clear. Since the administration of Kim Dae-jung, 1) Their strategy fuses content and home electronics, software and hardware. 2) Their strategy concentrates on the international marketplace. 3) Their strategy involves intense government support.

Japan has a lot to learn from their strategy.

Q. What should we do to enter foreign markets?

A. The government should concentrate on distribution. Japanese industry has not yet fully realized how to use the net. Also, Japan has very few broadcasting slots overseas. In the U.S., there are tens of channels in Chinese, 13 channels in Korean, but only one channel in Japanese.

Q. What is causing this problem?

A. I could offer copyright laws and piracy concerns as the issue. However, I believe that the biggest factor is lack of will. Companies that have eaten up the domestic market lack incentive to go for the international market. However, I believe that this situation has come to an end.

Q. Does the government need to be involved or should it be left to economics and culture?

A. Professor Joseph Nye has an international political theory of “Soft Power.” Content policy, even more than industrial policy, should be valued as a cultural and political policy as well. The government should be involved because content policy has more to do with culture than with industry, and is more about international relations than just domestic policy.

Q. Do you have any hints?

A. I hope that we will take advantage of the Tokyo Olympics. It’s an opportunity to distribute content overseas, improve the domestic infrastructure, and promote the expansion of content.

Q. Any other aspects of Japanese culture?

A. If you ask foreigners living in Japan what they would like to bring back to their own countries, they teach you many surprising things. For example, many people value our education system in which elementary students take turns on lunch duty serving their classmates. Also, whereas many people are afraid of the police in their home countries, in Japan anyone can feel comfortable asking them for help. These are things that foreigners would like to spread in their countries. I’m certain there are many more aspects of our culture that we are not yet aware of that can be presented to the world.

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International Debate：What does the Net produce? (Part 2)

 These are the questions that I was asked regarding the influence that the internet would have on society at the Stanford Trans-Asian Dialogue.

Q. What about the influence on Japan, China and Korea?

A. In regards to the territorial disputes, the net can serve to add fuel to the fire and to act as a breeder reactor for patriots. On the other hand, fans of Japanese anime, manga and games also increase in China and Korea as a result of the internet.

 When the Senkaku dispute was flaring up I spoke to students in the doctoral program at Peking University and asked them about the Japanese people whom they were aware of. Number three was Hayao Miyazaki, number two was Doraemon, and number one was Sora Aoi. I’m not entirely sure that number two is Japanese, but regardless, it’s a problem that none of them mentioned a politician, businessperson, or scholar. This problem isn’t unique to the Net.

Q. What do you think of the problem of digital pollution?

A. Digital signage takes up space. The use of public space in Japan is more strictly limited than in China or Korea, but private space like on taxis or department stores is not regulated. It might be possible to regulate the amount of visible media in the future, but as it becomes more ubiquitous it also becomes less effective. It might be best to leave the matter to market forces. This will also be a problem for consumer literacy.

Q. Will there be another large international problem?

A. In terms of copyright, the protection of children, and privacy, the conflict will not be one of countries. It will be a conflict between nations and global corporations. Japan has no influence over corporations like Google and Apple. They may have to think of new schemes to gain influence, or implement access limitations after the Chinese model.

Q. Will the relationship between newspapers and the Net change?

A. I am already tired of hearing stories are how people are shocked to hear that young people don’t read newspapers and don’t have a TV. Even in my case, my media consumption has already changed. Ten years ago I would wake up and 1) Open the newspaper, 2) Turn on the TV, and 3) check the news on my PC. Now things have reversed. I 1) Check Facebook, 2) follow Twitter, 3) Look at web sites, 4) watch TV news, and 5) read the newspaper.

 In the past, things were in the order of reliability. Now they are prioritized by proximity, recency, and then reliability. Confirmation takes place slowly at the end of the process. All of the media have value to me. The problem doesn’t necessarily lie in whether or not the medium is paper or not.

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International Debate：What does the Net produce? (Part 1)

 The Stanford Trans-Asian Dialogue was held in Kyoto. Professor Masahiko Aoki and Stanford researchers were joined by attendees from China, India, Singapore, and Malaysia to discuss digital media and the influence that it will have on the global society. I was at the table as well. Both at the round-table and in the public symposium I was bathed in questions.

Q. How has IT policy changed recently?

A. When I oversaw the deregulation of communications over 30 years ago, IT policy was focused on those who “offered” services and revolved around market competition and airwave distribution. It was domestic policy with makers and telecommunications/broadcasters as the administrative objects.

 However, with the digital infrastructure in place, policy has now shifted to the “use” of digital communications and broadcasting. Security, privacy, online sales, copyright law, education, health, and administration must all be dealt with, and the problems are borderless.

　There is a fundamental shift.

Q. How is the anxiety about the personal number system in Japan?

A. Japan will finally introduce a personal number system in 2016.

The Social Security Number is already in place in the U.S., and in Northern Europe even personal income is a matter of public record. In Germany the system is strictly controlled by the government. There are many models.

 Japan’s system will be similar to that of Germany’s in the beginning, but it’s not clear what it will become over time. There isn’t an international norm. As for where the line will be drawn, this should be led by the users, not by the government.

Q. Whose side is the net on?

A. It’s on the side of statesmen and on the side of terrorists. Like a knife, it can be both useful and used as a weapon. After Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press it took three centuries for the citizen revolution and industrial revolution to play out, and he’d never imagined the future that his invention would bring.

It would be best for us to try to imagine the future. However, it won’t take three centuries  in the case of IT. Maybe one generation, 30 years, will be enough for things to settle into place. The Net was introduced 20 years ago, so we’ll see where things are in another 10 years.

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Smart TVs and 4K/8K

 The “Multiscreen Broadcasting Study Group” was organized by television companies in Osaka to conduct operational tests of smart televisions. I was employed as a consultant. The idea was to utilize the technique currently used for terrestrial digital broadcasting, IP (Internet Protocol), to control multiple screens (TVs, tablets, and smartphones).

 They were to develop Japanese-style smart televisions that were born of a fusion of Japanese-style broadcasting and telecommunications.

 At the Broadcasting and Communication Fusion Exhibition “IMC”, an appli was presented that allowed for the control of a TV and a smartphone using IPDC (IP Data Cast) technology. It allowed for things like downloading and watching a show on a smartphone, or for the TV show to send commercials to the smartphone, where one could click on links to games or coupon sites.

 The real image of the smart television was starting to come into focus. At the same time, on the exhibition floor, 4K displays were attracting attention. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has been putting their energy into 4K/8K ultra-high-definition displays, and expectations are high, but the development of both 4K and 8K is happening simultaneously, which is causing some confusion.

  In the new media boom of the 80s, high definition TV and increasing channels by CATV and satellites were the themes. In the multi-media boom of the 90s, it was the digitization by PCs, Mobile phones, and the the internet and terrestrial lines.

 The next stage will be multi-screen, cloud networks, and social media. Digital signage and smart TVs are also a part of this movement. In particular, digital signage, and smart televisions are overlapping in Japan. We can finally see the next stage.

 However, we also have the release of 4K/8K. Japan is leading the world in this area. Multiscreen is just taking off, but the next stage has already begun.

 Executive Director Minami of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said, “The policies for 4K/8K and smart TVs should not be separate. They should be unified.” They should keep their eye on both sides by creating a business model for smart TVs while pioneering the market for 4K/8K. It will be difficult to steer, but unlike network communications, broadcasting is more easily influenced by government policy. Please take care of it.

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Tokyo Crazy Kawaii Paris

 The Tokyo Crazy Kawaii Paris includes manga, anime, games, music, fashion, and sundry goods. It’s an event for the creation of business platforms. It’s held for three days in the forest of Vincennes, Paris. I was employed as the executive committee chairman.

 There were two main points: “Total power” and “Participation.”

 First: total power. In addition to the virtual content of manga, anime, and games; the “physical” businesses of fashion, food, and sundry items were added to present the culture of Japan in a unified manner. Every year in July there is a “Japan Expo” that is run by the French and features manga, anime, and games. The “Tokyo Crazy Kawaii Paris” event presents Japan in a more holistic manner and Japan is entirely responsible for the planning and management of the event.

 It is also a participatory event. Over 70 businesses from a variety of genres, artists including Shonen Knife, and fans of Japan all participate in the event. The “Japan Expo” tends to draw “otaku” (geeks), but our event also draws in teens in Lolita fashions, normal families with children, and general consumers.

 On the exhibition floor, my eyes stopped on the Lolita fashion, the grilled octopus, and the purikura (picture booths).

 I was surprised by the number of people in Lolita dress. It was more “Lolita” than costume play. It’s a fashion that originated in Europe, but now Japan is the center of the movement. Japanese teens took the trend, rearranged it, and formed a new culture. Now this culture has been exported back to its point of origin. The same goes for manga, anima, and games. These use techniques and manners of expression that originated in the West, but Japan developed them and now exports them overseas.

 Even more than ramen, tonkatsu, udon, sushi, and soba; the line for grilled octopus (TAKOYAKI) was the longest of all. Everyone knows about the popularity of sushi and tempura, but grilled octopus? I suspect that there are still more genres of Japanese culture that will be a hit overseas.

 There was also a long line for the purikura (picture booths). I saw many people dressed as Miku Hatsune (a humanoid persona with a synthesized singing voice) as well. These paint a good picture of Japanese culture. They represent a combination of cultural power and technical power. The wish to create a decorated picture combined with the technical skill to do so. A cute animated character combined with the technology to breathe life into her. They are both the popular result of expression and technology.

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